Microprocessor with boot indicator that indicates a boot ISA of the microprocessor as either the X86 ISA or the ARM ISA

A method, comprising:

• detecting that a reset of a microprocessor has been signaled, wherein said detecting is performed by the microprocessor;
• determining, in response to said detecting that a reset of the microprocessor has been signaled, which of the x86 instruction set architecture (ISA) and the Advanced RISC Machines (ARM) ISA an indicator of the microprocessor indicates is a boot ISA of the microprocessor, wherein said determining is performed by the microprocessor;
• initializing an architectural state of the microprocessor as defined by the boot ISA, wherein said initializing is performed by the microprocessor;
• translating into microinstructions the initial ISA instructions fetched from architectural memory space by the microprocessor after the reset as instructions of the boot ISA, wherein said translating is performed by a hardware instruction translator of the microprocessor;
• and
• executing the microinstructions to generate results defined by the boot ISA, wherein said executing is performed by an execution pipeline of the microprocessor coupled to the hardware instruction translator.

A computer program product encoded in at least one non-transitory computer usable medium for use with a computing device, the computer program product comprising:

• computer usable program code embodied in said medium, for specifying a microprocessor, the computer usable program code comprising:
• first program code for specifying a plurality of registers, that holds an architectural state of the microprocessor;
• second program code for specifying an indicator, that indicates a boot instruction set architecture (ISA) of the microprocessor as either the x86 ISA or the Advanced RISC Machines (ARM) ISA;
• third program code for specifying a hardware instruction translator, that translates x86 ISA instructions and ARM ISA instructions into microinstructions, wherein the hardware instruction translator translates, as instructions of the boot ISA, the initial ISA instructions that the microprocessor fetches from architectural memory space after receiving a reset signal;
• fourth program code for specifying an execution pipeline, coupled to the hardware instruction translator, wherein the execution pipeline executes the microinstructions to generate results defined by the x86 ISA and ARM ISA instructions;
• and
• wherein in response to the reset signal, the microprocessor initializes its architectural state in the plurality of registers as defined by the boot ISA prior to fetching the initial ISA instructions.